In a new interview with Yahoo Movies, Sir Ridley Scott has spoken a little about James Franco’s small role in Alien: Covenant. In addition to a short comment about James Franco’s role (“I said: ‘There’s not much in it.’ And he said, ‘I don’t give a s***. I’ll do it.’ And he’s lovely, he’s a great guy. He’s so funny.”), Ridley did give some details about an additional scene that was filmed with Franco that ended up on the cutting room floor:

“I did one more scene which was [Branson] in an apartment, a futuristic apartment in New York with Daniels, who is his wife, played by Katherine [Waterston].

And we see this couple discussing a future … and that’s where the metaphor of a cabin on the lake comes from. He says ‘we’ll build this cabin on the lake in this particular place’, and they’ve identified where they’re going to go. But the journey will be long and dangerous. Dangerous because you’re asleep and who knows what happens? That was in there but I discovered we don’t need it.

So poor old James is in that casket and then he’s hanging off a rock saying ‘hey’ and that’s it. It was only ever intended to be three scenes. It was set during their planning stage to go. They were a couple who were science-orientated and that’s what it was, so you get a glimpse of who he is and what their relationship is. When you lose him you kind of miss him, but I think Daniels gets that over pretty well.”

On the topic of deleted scenes, it turns out the bombing sequence glimpsed in The Crossing and in Alien: Covenant nearly didn’t end up in the film! Talking to Digital Spy, Ridley told them 20th Century Fox didn’t want the scene:

“Intriguingly, Sir Ridley Scott told us the studio didn’t want that stirring scene in the film, preferring for it to be communicated casually in conversation. Sir Ridley insisted. The Engineers were dying on camera.”

Because I am familiar with James Franco, I felt the loss of the captain more. Is that why a movie star was cast in the brief role?

Originally, the James Franco was part of what was a larger storyline, involving learning a little more about his background and actually getting to see some of his dreams that he'd had while he was asleep. It had to do with the backstory of both Daniels [Katherine Waterson] as well as Billy Crudup's character, Oram. Part of Ridley's idea was that this was a ship that not only had this external problem, but it also had this problem that there was this captain who was not the original captain who is now going to lead the mission and maybe make some terrible mistakes. The James Franco character is in that teaser a good bit more and I think in different versions of the screenplay as it went along, he had a larger role, but his role was always to be an absent captain.

I'm really confused why James Franco was cast in the first place for a movie he would only be in for a couple minutes at most? Did they just need another big name in the film? Wouldn't seem more practical just to cast a no-name?

Glad that Sir Ridley insisted the bombing scene be kept in. He's probably one of the very few people on the planet that can stand up to Fox and make them back off, as they rightly should. The ALIEN franchise has made 20th Century Fox IMHO. When I think of the ALIEN movies, I think of 20th Century Fox and Ridley Scott. That's pretty powerful IMHO. Only two more days for us until it releases in the States for us my fellow UK friends! Cheers! I'm pretty much on a full "black out" mode now. I've only watched the first two trailers and said "that's enough". Nowadays, studios practically show you the whole damn film before it's released. :-

I've noticed a couple of pieces from trailers etc that are missing from final cut. One that sticks in my mind is the quick snippet from the T.V spot 'country roads' that has a record player with a red record playing?

The record they edited to Black in later releases. Guess they weren't a fan of Boris "Pink".

Oh yeah was sure I'd missed that Rossie scream! Hope the Blu-Ray is chock-a-bloc with deleted scenes and extras. The Prometheus Blu-Ray was a treat with the amount of extras. "Ridley told them 20th Century Fox didn’t want the scene", so I guess Fox wanted a new Alien, not Prometheus 2. Sad but not surprising.

Or they wanted to leave a door open for a return to Prometheus type stories if this crashes and burns.

Oh yeah was sure I'd missed that Rossie scream! Hope the Blu-Ray is chock-a-bloc with deleted scenes and extras. The Prometheus Blu-Ray was a treat with the amount of extras. "Ridley told them 20th Century Fox didn’t want the scene", so I guess Fox wanted a new Alien, not Prometheus 2. Sad but not surprising.

I've noticed a couple of pieces from trailers etc that are missing from final cut. One that sticks in my mind is the quick snippet from the T.V spot 'country roads' that has a record player with a red record playing?